Just like some men. The point is, not all men are good with technology and computers and code, and not all women are good with them either. Unfortunately, due to this article and many others like it, we are going to see an influx of women who just want to get into it because they are ticked off that it is "male dominated". What this really means is that we are going to have a whole bunch of new people who really have no natural talent for computers, but are in the industry anyways. For all of us "real" geeks, the ones who got into it for the love of the craft, this means that we are going to be spending the vast majority of our time either training people who really have no basic interest in what we're teaching, or cleaning up the messes made by people who have no skill for computers.
I know I'm probably sounding like a pretty chauvanistic jerk right now, but the same thing goes for guys who are getting into the industry just because it offers larger salaries. The only reason to get into a technical field is because you love the field and you have a talent for it, not to "balance out the gender gap" or to "make the big bucks".
I'm not sure if it still goin on as I've boycotted them because of it, but if you went on their site, they decided that you must love them so much that you would want their logo as your desktop background. That's just far too intrusive for any website to be.
just means that I misread the damn thing... like that time I posted something about Microsoft in a forum that had nothing to do with M$ because the story that did have something to do with M$ was taken out....
I'm in the midst of coding a module for the Olympus Project from Mount Linux that will handle CVS administration. This project is meant to bring all administration for an entire *nix network to a single X desktop and this new development should make it easier. If anyone is interested in helping out on the mod_CVS that I am working on, it is located on Sourceforge under the name Cerberus. Good news all around I guess.
Let me get this straight... is this the popular view of the majority of Americans?? Are you all so ego centric that you can't see that this is exactly the kind of attitude that starts wars??
For example, what is the base reason that Serbia invaded Croatia?? Because Serbs are better than Croats. Why are all these middle eastern countries going through "ethnic cleansing"?? Because the race performing the cleansing is better than the people being cleansed. Or, let's take it back to something that the American's have been patting themselves on the back for for decades... WWII. Why did the Nazis want to take over the world?? Because the germanic people were better than everyone else.
Now, I may be mistaken, and I may have taken your comments out of context, but is this not essentialy what you just said??
Allow me to expand on some things here. First, communism is not inherantly flawed. Karl Marx had a good idea, pure, unadulterated equality for all mankind. The flaw lies not in the philosophy, but in the fact that people are greedy, untrustworthy, basic, animalistic brutes. If people could give up greed and jealousy, it would work swimmingly. Second, the US's "peace keeping" efforts are little more than a massive military flexing its biceps and saying "settle down, or else". Canadians are peacekeepers, the British are peacekeppers, Americans are international police, and not the good kind, more like the Rodney King kind. Thirdly, what right have you to declare yourselves the watchdog of anything, with as much domestic turmoil and such a patchy history, you shouldn't even be allowed to be the global crossing guard.
Finally, the world is NOT US centric. I personally, and any Canadian I talk to who is not a politician couldn't care less what the States say. Even some of the politicians figure there are some issues that you simply have no concern in (I cite as example the whole Canada trading with Cuba fiasco) and I would imagine that every country in the western world wishes you would just get your nose out of our business.
I understand that this is probably a flame, and most definately flamebait. But I'm tired of Americans getting up on their high horse and declaring that the rest of the world is, quite simply, wrong unless they do everything the States tell them to. We are no longer in colonial times, and none of us are part of your country. Butt out.
...that I could get really pretty screen shots from Gnome on my 486/66 with 16 meg RAM. When X wasn't trying to load anything, it looked very nice. When I tried to load something it still looked nice... the same screen looked really nice, I never did see the next screen for, say, Netscape, but the desktop still looked very nice indeed. You can't base anything except video card quality on screenshots. It may still run like crap, even if it is more visually stunning than anything else.
Hell no, for Linux development I use C++ and Perl, for Windows development I use C++, for web applications I use Java and Perl... why, when I have all of these tools already available, am I going to go through the trouble and pain of learning a new language. I don't care how much like C/C++ and Java it is, it'll still have differences and quirks that I'll need to learn... and since it's from MS it's going to be things like "Oh, declaring an int there causes the compiler to crash..." or "Oh, compiling this program causes Windows to shit itself". After using VB, I have decided that M$ just shouldn't make languages...
note to Bill: all your stuff sucks, stop making more of it...
Well, I went into it after having read the book and so I was apalled... The fact that Psychlos had been using humans all along, the multiple teleporters on planet Psychlo, the lack of a really definitive final battle... all points to hate it...
However... for making a 1000+ page book into a 2 hour movie I think they did quite well. The character development for Terl was well done given the time frame, he was made out to be fairly evil... not as evil as in the book, but I'll forgive them based on time restraints. The special effects were good, most noteably the destruction of Psychlo. I did like some of the stuff they added, like the whole scene where Jonny managed to get a weapon and figure out how to use it so quickly... not entirely believeable, but a nice plot point showing how intelligent he was.
My girlfriend went into the movie having not read the book and she was still able to follow it very easily, something that I can't say about movies such as Dune, where, if you hadn't read the book, you would be completely lost. This movie was put out there for this day and age, where very few people will have read the book. It did a good job of introducing the book to people who might be willing to read it, and for that I give it kudos. So, for giving readers a reason to pick up that massive tome that is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, I applaud Hollywood.
Ahh, yet another shining example of what I have begun terming "the new flame". It's like the new coke, tasteless and boring at best. Flames these days are like diet, caffein free Coke. They promise something that they just can't deliver.
I know that this flame was intended to offend me, and I'm trying my damndest to be offended by it... but I just can't feel offended by such a poorass lame excuse for a flame.
Now, a REAL geek insult would be something like "You, sir, would be ideally suited for a position in government", or "here's a turnip for you to worship, try not to drool on my shoes anymore"...
That's the best flame you can come up with?? "boy you're stupid"?!?!?! That's just sad... how has the noble art of flaming been turned into "boy you're stupid"??? I remember flames like "you have the brain power of a half witted mollusk on hallucinogens" or "If I puked in a pen and mailed it to the monkey house I'd get a better post than this garbage", but "boy you're stupid"?? Look little man, you need to go get a job so you can buy yourself a life... Eat excrement and expire you who cower behind anonymity...
Your post may have warped his fragile, little mind. No, I think all the cheap drugs back in the 80's did that... *Grin* Anyways... yes, that would be a very bad thing... all us IT professionals would go from being "noble shadowrunners just out to dodge the corporate bullet" to being "evil conspirators bent on world domination" really quick... tell me Jon, is there evry anything you read that you don't take completely seriously?? Fact and fiction m'friend, fact and fiction...
There were 2 rumors, one that they would be moving to Vancouver, British Columbia (just a few hundred miles north, but might as well be light years for implications) and also one that they were considering moving to Calgary, Alberta (where this reply is coming from coincidentaly). Both rumors have been officially denied by both Microsoft and the municipal and prvincial governments concerned, although Calgary's mayor, Al Deurr said he would welcome them with open arms *Grin*
Unfortunately I know little of the Freemasons (even though my grandfather was one) and was unaware that they were the product of the merging of hermeticism and architecture. I find that fascinating.
Also, the very thought of combining the rigorous mental discipline of the magi with... well... the rigorous mental discipline of the hacker I guess... would have potential to yield something very interesting indeed. People who do not just hack with their hands or their minds... but with the entirety of their psyche and soul...
Perhaps that would indeed lead to something like the high power Deckers that exist in the Shadowrun world... As you said... fascinating
Being from Canada, the Aurora Borealis is nothing new to me, however, if this causes anything like the light shows we got here last summer, I'm not going to sleep until the storm is over.
I've never seen boreali that bright with that many colours. Another thing was the size of them, I'm used to seeing a few strands and trailers on the northernmost edge of the sky. Last summer though, it filled the entire northern hemisphere of the sky with writhing, glowing, hissing (yes, up here you can actually hear them) fire strands.
I can't think of a more impressive, beautiful sight. Not even the greatest sunset/rise came close to comparing to this. So if you want a really great show, book a trip up here to Calgary, or even better, some place further north like Edmonton or Ft. McMurray... this promises to be great.
Laws are concieved and nurtured through involvement and hard work by concerned and dedicated citizens.
Laws are concieved by the rich and implemented by either the sadistic or the apathetic. All of the laws that protect the individual were created long before any of us even drew breath. Laws made these days are for the protection of one thing... money. Cash is the almighty driving force behind everything in our culture.
Once upon a time the government cared about people... no we see things like our Prime Minister Jean Chretien, unable to take a few hours and a slight detour to visit the people of an entire town struck with E-Coli from tainted water, all because he had an economics metting elsewhere a few days down the road.
This kind of governmental apathy to actual human beings will be the downfall of our society, if not our entire race. Okay, maybe I'm being melodramatic, but do you think anyone in that town is going to vote Liberal come election time??
Okay, I'm going to have to go watch Blade Runner now... I like Harrison Ford, but I never really watched it all the way through because I lost interest. However... now I must watch it, because my name is Tyrell, and if the big nasty in the movie is named after me, I feel that I can wade through the parts I didn't like.
First off, Jon, you should go out and play the game, you have some good points, but the mystique is still beyond you. If you were from around where I was, I'd be glad to GM a one-shot game for you...
However, you have stated that magic doesn't fit into the corporate structure of the world these days. I will give you points for that, management doesn't realize what magic actually is, or how to use it, but don't say it doesn't exist. Mages and shamans still exist today, but their medium is different.
In the good old days, Hermetic mages read books and combined chemicals to make their "magic". Today's hermetic mages combine algorithms and syntax to weave their spells within the realm of the electron. Shamans dealt with spirits and totems to cause fantastical things to happen. How different, speaking of the most basic part of it, is using a TCP/IP packet or a SMB file share to cause amazing things to happen in the dark world inside the box?
Just because methods have changed doesn't mean magic doesn't exist, it just exists in a different form. Now your wizards and wisemen have put on new robes. Instead of hooded cloaks it's jeans and golf shirts, instead of staffs and sandals it's power supplies and penny loafers. Magic today is performed on the computer, by those who can be called Technomancers.
I think a lot of the IT profesional's transient nature started way back in school.
The typical IT profesional is a computer geek. This is a valid statement in itself, and I'm sure most of you would agree with its truth. However, let's take a look at what that term, which most of us would consider a badge of honour, means to the average Joe.
To John Q. Public, your standard computer geek is someone who is built very poorly in the physical departmen, "scrawny little weakling" springs to mind. They are also a bunch of bookworms who would rather have their nose burried in "one of those stupid, fake, sci-fi books" than partake in the real world of professional sports. There are other steroetypes involving things ranging from taped glasses to personal hygene that are simply beyond the scope of this rant.
This leads us to our transient nature. Due to these unfounded stereotypes (I, for one, love playing and watching football, have 20/20 vision, and am almost pathological about personal cleanliness) we are avoided and, in many cases, ridiculed. When one does not fin in with a group, one moves on to another group. Thus it begins.
There is no permanence to an IT professional's life due to no stability in relationships wrought as a child.
Of course... I could just be an embittered, lonely individual who wants to bitch about why my life sucks... who knows?? *G*
...can be found here at the Official String Theory Website. This site gives an overview of the need for string theory, what it is, and how it works with previous theories. Definately worth a read if you have read or are thinking of reading this book.
Unless you are good looking, athletic, dumb as a brick, and don't know a computer from your own ass at least.
People who don't fit in have always been around. People who dare to spet outside the norm for a while have always been criticized. Gallileo was branded as a heretic for his belief that the Earth revolved around the sun. Do you think that if he had had access to something as global and far reaching as the internet that he wouldn't have used it to put forth his theories??
People in general are not open to new ideas. If something comes along to alter what they percieve as reality, they lash back. To many people I went to school with, computers weren't useful, fun, interesting or anything else but boxes that made clicking and buzzing noises from time to time. I will note that these are the same people who thought that reading the ingredients on the side of a cereal package a challenge. Since I preferred books and computers to sports and cars, I was labelled a freak, subject to ridicule, and occasional violence. I was not given the right to retaliate, as my parents, teachers, and many other prominent adult figures agreed, although silently, with the judgement of my classmates.
This young man fought back in the only way he saw available to him. He went to a medium that most of them would never see, but he would be vindicated and justice would be served in his own mind. Was he right to say those things about those people?? Absolutely. He didn't say about them anything that hadn't been said about him or his friends by them in the first place.
In this day and age, people are still being branded as heretics for standing up for their beliefs. If you do not believe what everyone else believes, you are wriong. If you have been branded as an outsider, you'd better damn well stay an outsider because any sort of retaliation is just going to get you into more trouble. I only wish that back then I had have had the power to set up my own webpage with my thoughts and feelings about those who tormented me, it may have made my life a little easier.
Why is a person not allowed to speak his mind? Why is he branded as a potentially dangerous sociopath for standing up for his rights to security and peace of mind... basic, inaliable human rights?? Perhaps society is about ready for a radical change. I suggest a call to arms for all the downtrodden (Bring us your poor, your downtrodden, your huddles masses) people who have put up with crap from a bunch of clean cut, athletic go-getters. A call for all of us who have been labelled 'Geeks', 'Nerds', 'Wierd', or any other insult designed to slander you for being smart, or for being non-athletic. I issue this call, post your rants somewhere they will be seen, post names you remember from childhood that made your lives particularily hard to bear.
Do not break the law, this is not intended as a call ot violence, but a call to exercise your rights of freedom of speech. They can't charge us all, they can't even find us all. I'll be the first person to go, my web-page is started, it'll be posted here for all to see.
Don't let these people take away our dignity by silencing a simple act of retaliation.
What kind of action do you suggest? A Jihad of some sort? I hope... *EG*. Perhaps it is time for us, the advocates of licenses that make sense, of freedom of speech, of... dare I say it... Open Source *sound of a choir of angel added for effect*, to rise up and smite the infidels who block the freedom of people to say and think what they want...
Rise up my geeky bretheren (and sisteren, just so I'm not labelled as sexist), let us take back our... *flips a page on his 'Cause of the Month' calendar* Dental Plan!!... Hold on, that doesn't make sense... *flips again*... Hey, this doesn't have ANY causes worth fighting for... do you see what I have to work with here...
Anyways... rise up and take back the freedom of speech. For starters I would like to say...
APOGEE SUCKS!!!
And I really hope they read that. However, despite my lame attempt to get some "Funny" moderation, I think this is ludicrous. People have a right to express their opinions... in this country at least... as well as in our neighbor to the south, where Apogee is based. Even if that opinion isn't the most flattering thing... I mean, what's next, are movie critics, software and hardware reviews, editorial comments and a plethora of other opinion based things that we all rely on going to be censored out if they aren't exactly what the company wants to hear?? C'mon people... this is insane...
For a second I was about to ask what kind of crack you were on... then I realized you were talking about PROVINCIAL government, not federal.
However, I resent you calling Ontario the "Most powerful province in Canada". I assume you are basing that primarily on the fact that you have the largest population ant that Ottowa is the seat of government. I would like to point out that Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba bring in more money through farming, BC and all the Atlantic provinces bring in more money through fishing, Alberta (specifically Calgary, AKA Silicon Valley North) brings in tons of capital through high tech ventures, and Ontario and Quebec hang out in the middle and suck it all up.
Now that I'm done flaming you (sorry, I'm pissed off at the east because I'm an Albertan), feel free to move out here if things don't get better, we're back to increasing spending on health care and welfare now that we've eliminated our provincial debt and our provincial deficit. Ralph's not such a bad guy once you get to know him, he just does what needs to be done.
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Just like some men. The point is, not all men are good with technology and computers and code, and not all women are good with them either. Unfortunately, due to this article and many others like it, we are going to see an influx of women who just want to get into it because they are ticked off that it is "male dominated". What this really means is that we are going to have a whole bunch of new people who really have no natural talent for computers, but are in the industry anyways. For all of us "real" geeks, the ones who got into it for the love of the craft, this means that we are going to be spending the vast majority of our time either training people who really have no basic interest in what we're teaching, or cleaning up the messes made by people who have no skill for computers.
I know I'm probably sounding like a pretty chauvanistic jerk right now, but the same thing goes for guys who are getting into the industry just because it offers larger salaries. The only reason to get into a technical field is because you love the field and you have a talent for it, not to "balance out the gender gap" or to "make the big bucks".
That's just my thoughts on the matter.
I'm not sure if it still goin on as I've boycotted them because of it, but if you went on their site, they decided that you must love them so much that you would want their logo as your desktop background. That's just far too intrusive for any website to be.
I wonder if something like this could be used to nullify the /. affect... worth thinking about < EG >
just means that I misread the damn thing... like that time I posted something about Microsoft in a forum that had nothing to do with M$ because the story that did have something to do with M$ was taken out....
I'm in the midst of coding a module for the Olympus Project from Mount Linux that will handle CVS administration. This project is meant to bring all administration for an entire *nix network to a single X desktop and this new development should make it easier. If anyone is interested in helping out on the mod_CVS that I am working on, it is located on Sourceforge under the name Cerberus. Good news all around I guess.
Great Gaia...
Let me get this straight... is this the popular view of the majority of Americans?? Are you all so ego centric that you can't see that this is exactly the kind of attitude that starts wars??
For example, what is the base reason that Serbia invaded Croatia?? Because Serbs are better than Croats. Why are all these middle eastern countries going through "ethnic cleansing"?? Because the race performing the cleansing is better than the people being cleansed. Or, let's take it back to something that the American's have been patting themselves on the back for for decades... WWII. Why did the Nazis want to take over the world?? Because the germanic people were better than everyone else.
Now, I may be mistaken, and I may have taken your comments out of context, but is this not essentialy what you just said??
Allow me to expand on some things here. First, communism is not inherantly flawed. Karl Marx had a good idea, pure, unadulterated equality for all mankind. The flaw lies not in the philosophy, but in the fact that people are greedy, untrustworthy, basic, animalistic brutes. If people could give up greed and jealousy, it would work swimmingly. Second, the US's "peace keeping" efforts are little more than a massive military flexing its biceps and saying "settle down, or else". Canadians are peacekeepers, the British are peacekeppers, Americans are international police, and not the good kind, more like the Rodney King kind. Thirdly, what right have you to declare yourselves the watchdog of anything, with as much domestic turmoil and such a patchy history, you shouldn't even be allowed to be the global crossing guard.
Finally, the world is NOT US centric. I personally, and any Canadian I talk to who is not a politician couldn't care less what the States say. Even some of the politicians figure there are some issues that you simply have no concern in (I cite as example the whole Canada trading with Cuba fiasco) and I would imagine that every country in the western world wishes you would just get your nose out of our business.
I understand that this is probably a flame, and most definately flamebait. But I'm tired of Americans getting up on their high horse and declaring that the rest of the world is, quite simply, wrong unless they do everything the States tell them to. We are no longer in colonial times, and none of us are part of your country. Butt out.
...that I could get really pretty screen shots from Gnome on my 486/66 with 16 meg RAM. When X wasn't trying to load anything, it looked very nice. When I tried to load something it still looked nice... the same screen looked really nice, I never did see the next screen for, say, Netscape, but the desktop still looked very nice indeed. You can't base anything except video card quality on screenshots. It may still run like crap, even if it is more visually stunning than anything else.
it ain't for geeks until there's an O'Reilly book
I can refute that statement with a single URL. As we all know... VB isn't fit for ANYONE, especially not geeks.
Hell no, for Linux development I use C++ and Perl, for Windows development I use C++, for web applications I use Java and Perl... why, when I have all of these tools already available, am I going to go through the trouble and pain of learning a new language. I don't care how much like C/C++ and Java it is, it'll still have differences and quirks that I'll need to learn... and since it's from MS it's going to be things like "Oh, declaring an int there causes the compiler to crash..." or "Oh, compiling this program causes Windows to shit itself". After using VB, I have decided that M$ just shouldn't make languages...
note to Bill: all your stuff sucks, stop making more of it...
Well, I went into it after having read the book and so I was apalled... The fact that Psychlos had been using humans all along, the multiple teleporters on planet Psychlo, the lack of a really definitive final battle... all points to hate it...
However... for making a 1000+ page book into a 2 hour movie I think they did quite well. The character development for Terl was well done given the time frame, he was made out to be fairly evil... not as evil as in the book, but I'll forgive them based on time restraints. The special effects were good, most noteably the destruction of Psychlo. I did like some of the stuff they added, like the whole scene where Jonny managed to get a weapon and figure out how to use it so quickly... not entirely believeable, but a nice plot point showing how intelligent he was.
My girlfriend went into the movie having not read the book and she was still able to follow it very easily, something that I can't say about movies such as Dune, where, if you hadn't read the book, you would be completely lost. This movie was put out there for this day and age, where very few people will have read the book. It did a good job of introducing the book to people who might be willing to read it, and for that I give it kudos. So, for giving readers a reason to pick up that massive tome that is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, I applaud Hollywood.
Ahh, yet another shining example of what I have begun terming "the new flame". It's like the new coke, tasteless and boring at best. Flames these days are like diet, caffein free Coke. They promise something that they just can't deliver.
I know that this flame was intended to offend me, and I'm trying my damndest to be offended by it... but I just can't feel offended by such a poorass lame excuse for a flame.
Now, a REAL geek insult would be something like "You, sir, would be ideally suited for a position in government", or "here's a turnip for you to worship, try not to drool on my shoes anymore"...
grow up
That's the best flame you can come up with?? "boy you're stupid"?!?!?! That's just sad... how has the noble art of flaming been turned into "boy you're stupid"??? I remember flames like "you have the brain power of a half witted mollusk on hallucinogens" or "If I puked in a pen and mailed it to the monkey house I'd get a better post than this garbage", but "boy you're stupid"?? Look little man, you need to go get a job so you can buy yourself a life... Eat excrement and expire you who cower behind anonymity...
Your post may have warped his fragile, little mind. No, I think all the cheap drugs back in the 80's did that... *Grin* Anyways... yes, that would be a very bad thing... all us IT professionals would go from being "noble shadowrunners just out to dodge the corporate bullet" to being "evil conspirators bent on world domination" really quick... tell me Jon, is there evry anything you read that you don't take completely seriously?? Fact and fiction m'friend, fact and fiction...
There were 2 rumors, one that they would be moving to Vancouver, British Columbia (just a few hundred miles north, but might as well be light years for implications) and also one that they were considering moving to Calgary, Alberta (where this reply is coming from coincidentaly). Both rumors have been officially denied by both Microsoft and the municipal and prvincial governments concerned, although Calgary's mayor, Al Deurr said he would welcome them with open arms *Grin*
Unfortunately I know little of the Freemasons (even though my grandfather was one) and was unaware that they were the product of the merging of hermeticism and architecture. I find that fascinating.
Also, the very thought of combining the rigorous mental discipline of the magi with... well... the rigorous mental discipline of the hacker I guess... would have potential to yield something very interesting indeed. People who do not just hack with their hands or their minds... but with the entirety of their psyche and soul...
Perhaps that would indeed lead to something like the high power Deckers that exist in the Shadowrun world... As you said... fascinating
Being from Canada, the Aurora Borealis is nothing new to me, however, if this causes anything like the light shows we got here last summer, I'm not going to sleep until the storm is over.
I've never seen boreali that bright with that many colours. Another thing was the size of them, I'm used to seeing a few strands and trailers on the northernmost edge of the sky. Last summer though, it filled the entire northern hemisphere of the sky with writhing, glowing, hissing (yes, up here you can actually hear them) fire strands.
I can't think of a more impressive, beautiful sight. Not even the greatest sunset/rise came close to comparing to this. So if you want a really great show, book a trip up here to Calgary, or even better, some place further north like Edmonton or Ft. McMurray... this promises to be great.
Laws are concieved and nurtured through involvement and hard work by concerned and dedicated citizens.
Laws are concieved by the rich and implemented by either the sadistic or the apathetic. All of the laws that protect the individual were created long before any of us even drew breath. Laws made these days are for the protection of one thing... money. Cash is the almighty driving force behind everything in our culture.
Once upon a time the government cared about people... no we see things like our Prime Minister Jean Chretien, unable to take a few hours and a slight detour to visit the people of an entire town struck with E-Coli from tainted water, all because he had an economics metting elsewhere a few days down the road.
This kind of governmental apathy to actual human beings will be the downfall of our society, if not our entire race. Okay, maybe I'm being melodramatic, but do you think anyone in that town is going to vote Liberal come election time??
More often than not, they also tend to be cold-blooded murderers. I'm not. Are you?
That all depends on how much nuyen it's worth chummer *grin*
_Blade Runner_ had the Tyrell Corporation
Okay, I'm going to have to go watch Blade Runner now... I like Harrison Ford, but I never really watched it all the way through because I lost interest. However... now I must watch it, because my name is Tyrell, and if the big nasty in the movie is named after me, I feel that I can wade through the parts I didn't like.
...well, after a fashion at least.
First off, Jon, you should go out and play the game, you have some good points, but the mystique is still beyond you. If you were from around where I was, I'd be glad to GM a one-shot game for you...
However, you have stated that magic doesn't fit into the corporate structure of the world these days. I will give you points for that, management doesn't realize what magic actually is, or how to use it, but don't say it doesn't exist. Mages and shamans still exist today, but their medium is different.
In the good old days, Hermetic mages read books and combined chemicals to make their "magic". Today's hermetic mages combine algorithms and syntax to weave their spells within the realm of the electron. Shamans dealt with spirits and totems to cause fantastical things to happen. How different, speaking of the most basic part of it, is using a TCP/IP packet or a SMB file share to cause amazing things to happen in the dark world inside the box?
Just because methods have changed doesn't mean magic doesn't exist, it just exists in a different form. Now your wizards and wisemen have put on new robes. Instead of hooded cloaks it's jeans and golf shirts, instead of staffs and sandals it's power supplies and penny loafers. Magic today is performed on the computer, by those who can be called Technomancers.
I think a lot of the IT profesional's transient nature started way back in school.
The typical IT profesional is a computer geek. This is a valid statement in itself, and I'm sure most of you would agree with its truth. However, let's take a look at what that term, which most of us would consider a badge of honour, means to the average Joe.
To John Q. Public, your standard computer geek is someone who is built very poorly in the physical departmen, "scrawny little weakling" springs to mind. They are also a bunch of bookworms who would rather have their nose burried in "one of those stupid, fake, sci-fi books" than partake in the real world of professional sports. There are other steroetypes involving things ranging from taped glasses to personal hygene that are simply beyond the scope of this rant.
This leads us to our transient nature. Due to these unfounded stereotypes (I, for one, love playing and watching football, have 20/20 vision, and am almost pathological about personal cleanliness) we are avoided and, in many cases, ridiculed. When one does not fin in with a group, one moves on to another group. Thus it begins.
There is no permanence to an IT professional's life due to no stability in relationships wrought as a child.
Of course... I could just be an embittered, lonely individual who wants to bitch about why my life sucks... who knows?? *G*
...can be found here at the Official String Theory Website. This site gives an overview of the need for string theory, what it is, and how it works with previous theories. Definately worth a read if you have read or are thinking of reading this book.
High school is hell.
Unless you are good looking, athletic, dumb as a brick, and don't know a computer from your own ass at least.
People who don't fit in have always been around. People who dare to spet outside the norm for a while have always been criticized. Gallileo was branded as a heretic for his belief that the Earth revolved around the sun. Do you think that if he had had access to something as global and far reaching as the internet that he wouldn't have used it to put forth his theories??
People in general are not open to new ideas. If something comes along to alter what they percieve as reality, they lash back. To many people I went to school with, computers weren't useful, fun, interesting or anything else but boxes that made clicking and buzzing noises from time to time. I will note that these are the same people who thought that reading the ingredients on the side of a cereal package a challenge. Since I preferred books and computers to sports and cars, I was labelled a freak, subject to ridicule, and occasional violence. I was not given the right to retaliate, as my parents, teachers, and many other prominent adult figures agreed, although silently, with the judgement of my classmates.
This young man fought back in the only way he saw available to him. He went to a medium that most of them would never see, but he would be vindicated and justice would be served in his own mind. Was he right to say those things about those people?? Absolutely. He didn't say about them anything that hadn't been said about him or his friends by them in the first place.
In this day and age, people are still being branded as heretics for standing up for their beliefs. If you do not believe what everyone else believes, you are wriong. If you have been branded as an outsider, you'd better damn well stay an outsider because any sort of retaliation is just going to get you into more trouble. I only wish that back then I had have had the power to set up my own webpage with my thoughts and feelings about those who tormented me, it may have made my life a little easier.
Why is a person not allowed to speak his mind? Why is he branded as a potentially dangerous sociopath for standing up for his rights to security and peace of mind... basic, inaliable human rights?? Perhaps society is about ready for a radical change. I suggest a call to arms for all the downtrodden (Bring us your poor, your downtrodden, your huddles masses) people who have put up with crap from a bunch of clean cut, athletic go-getters. A call for all of us who have been labelled 'Geeks', 'Nerds', 'Wierd', or any other insult designed to slander you for being smart, or for being non-athletic. I issue this call, post your rants somewhere they will be seen, post names you remember from childhood that made your lives particularily hard to bear.
Do not break the law, this is not intended as a call ot violence, but a call to exercise your rights of freedom of speech. They can't charge us all, they can't even find us all. I'll be the first person to go, my web-page is started, it'll be posted here for all to see.
Don't let these people take away our dignity by silencing a simple act of retaliation.
What kind of action do you suggest? A Jihad of some sort? I hope... *EG*. Perhaps it is time for us, the advocates of licenses that make sense, of freedom of speech, of... dare I say it... Open Source *sound of a choir of angel added for effect*, to rise up and smite the infidels who block the freedom of people to say and think what they want...
Rise up my geeky bretheren (and sisteren, just so I'm not labelled as sexist), let us take back our... *flips a page on his 'Cause of the Month' calendar* Dental Plan!!... Hold on, that doesn't make sense... *flips again*... Hey, this doesn't have ANY causes worth fighting for... do you see what I have to work with here...
Anyways... rise up and take back the freedom of speech. For starters I would like to say...
APOGEE SUCKS!!!
And I really hope they read that. However, despite my lame attempt to get some "Funny" moderation, I think this is ludicrous. People have a right to express their opinions... in this country at least... as well as in our neighbor to the south, where Apogee is based. Even if that opinion isn't the most flattering thing... I mean, what's next, are movie critics, software and hardware reviews, editorial comments and a plethora of other opinion based things that we all rely on going to be censored out if they aren't exactly what the company wants to hear?? C'mon people... this is insane...
For a second I was about to ask what kind of crack you were on... then I realized you were talking about PROVINCIAL government, not federal.
However, I resent you calling Ontario the "Most powerful province in Canada". I assume you are basing that primarily on the fact that you have the largest population ant that Ottowa is the seat of government. I would like to point out that Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba bring in more money through farming, BC and all the Atlantic provinces bring in more money through fishing, Alberta (specifically Calgary, AKA Silicon Valley North) brings in tons of capital through high tech ventures, and Ontario and Quebec hang out in the middle and suck it all up.
Now that I'm done flaming you (sorry, I'm pissed off at the east because I'm an Albertan), feel free to move out here if things don't get better, we're back to increasing spending on health care and welfare now that we've eliminated our provincial debt and our provincial deficit. Ralph's not such a bad guy once you get to know him, he just does what needs to be done.